Kombucha is a delicious and healthy beverage for your body. In addition, brewing kombucha brings me great joy. The process involves patience, creativity and planning to execute. When it’s complete, I have the opportunity to sit back and savor my work and even critique it. I enjoy drinking kombucha instead of a coffee or sweet drink, like juice or soda. I think you will too. If you enjoy the carbonated soft drinks and you are looking for something a bit healthier, you have to give it a try.
When I originally started drinking kombucha, I bought it from the grocery store. I enjoyed the flavors and brews but it was inconvenient to run out plus I was going through a lot of bottles. So, I decided to brew my own at home. Now, I maintain the inventory and I retain full artistic control over the process.
When you brew kombucha at home, you are free to manipulate the ingredients, brew time, flavors, and fizziness. It may sound a bit odd, but I have achieved a great deal of enjoyment out of experimenting and sharing the results with my friends.
Hopefully, I encourage a few of you to brew along at home. Follow along and I will tell you about the 3 Fs: ferment, fizz, and flavor, which yield the unique and infinite combinations available in brewing kombucha and creating delicious and nutritious products to enjoy.
ferment
My first brews were like a hoppy, tangy sweet tea. I enjoyed drinking it quite a bit because I enjoy the tea, however I think I was missing benefits from the full fermentation. I slowly added an extra day to each brew and the extra fermentation time has yielded a livelier, more complex drink.
Less Sweet = Better
I have pushed my initial ferment out to 14 days plus I have dialed back the sugar content. The additional brewing time allows the ferment to create the beneficial acids for your body. The reduced sugar amount changes the taste. As you may remember from my licorice article, your taste buds recognize sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and savory. It seems the sweet was dominating the drink. Dialing it back allowed the other tastes to come forward.
flavor
After you complete the initial ferment, you have regular kombucha. It’s tastes pretty good like that, but, it really becomes flavorful when you put it through a second fermentation. In that process, you add natural ingredients to become part of the drink and flavor it. The fermentation pulls the sugar from the plants and incorporates that sugar with the residual yeast and bacteria creating a unique taste.
It’s really cool to add something to the kombucha and bottle it up for 4 days waiting to try it. When you finally serve that flavor up, you just don’t know what you are going to get. Everyone loves a surprise and I am no different. I also love tasting the brewing and trying to unlock the complexity of the flavors that have been incorporated together.
I have experimented with raspberry, blueberry, lemon, pineapple, ginger, cherry, nectarine, and apple. All of these have been fun to drink. I have found lemon turns up the tart and sour notes. My favorite additive is blueberries. They incorporate extremely well into the ferment, yield a vibrant color, and they add subtle flavors which complement virtually any other fruit.
Herbs and Flowers work too!
Since my garden lavender is coming in strong this spring, I have been experimenting with that for a flavor. In the picture above, I combined the lavender with echinacea. I cannot wait to try it. Later this summer, the tarragon and rosemary in my garden have the potential to be quite delightful. Once they are ready for clipping, they will find their way into a second ferment. I can’t wait for that taste test.
fizz
I think the fizziness is what makes kombucha unique and enjoyable. It turns your creation from a probiotic drink to a complex and interesting apertif. For those of you that may enjoy a sour beer or an IPA, this would be right up your non-alcoholic alley.
The fizz comes into the brew during the second fermentation process, along with the flavorings you add. At this point, you seal the jar with a lid and let the carbon dioxide build up in your brew. You will need to let a bit out every day, but you want to save as much as you can.
I have found the optimal amount of fizz is created at four days. I am going to let you in on a little secret. At the four day mark, just put the jar straight into the refrigerator without opening it up. This trick gives you the best sensory experience when you unveil it for the first pour.
Brew it Up!
I have just split my original scoby to enable me to brew twice as much kombucha. The kombucha was constantly running out before the next brew was finished. I do hope the split is successful and my output continues to grow. If you are interested in brewing on your own, I would be happy to share my scoby, recipes, and brewing secrets with you. I am sure you would enjoy the brewing process and you will have friends who would love to help you sample.
Either way, try some kombucha. Join the many people that swear by its benefits and results. If you wish, feel free to stop by my front porch on a summer evening and I will be delighted to treat you to a sample of fermented, flavorful, and fizzy kombucha tea. I expect to see you soon!